


run it down

by buckstiel



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alcohol, First Kiss, M/M, POV Sylvain Jose Gautier, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Rumors, Sexuality Crisis, Sparring, Sylvain Jose Gautier Being An Idiot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:40:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27136055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckstiel/pseuds/buckstiel
Summary: There’s the tiny, miniscule question of what Flayn meant by 'men and women alike have been seduced by your nefarious ways,' because--here’s the thing--who was feeding such salacious gossip to the angel-faced baby of the Academy? And who gave her the idea that Sylvain and men--Five times Sylvain falls further down the rabbit hole after a rumor and one time he sticks the landing.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 164





	run it down

**Author's Note:**

> i've had the first part of this sitting as a wip for literal ages and got tired of looking at it in my google drive. 
> 
> anyway sylvain and flayn's c-support kills me every time
> 
> thank u psyduckie for the beta (and encouragement)!

**1**

If there’s one skill Sylvain excels at, it isn’t listening--or so they say. Sylvain likes very much to believe that he can listen, follow orders on or off the battlefield, in whatever capacity or setting that requires. The professor’s directions in lance lessons are just as simple as dropping to his knees under the gaze of a townswoman--

Which is beside the point here, mostly. 

So when Flayn told him to _stay back or else_ , he was inclined to oblige. The idea of getting on Seteth’s bad side left his stomach turning like he’d eaten Dimitri’s last attempt at scrambled eggs. 

But! There’s always a _but_.

There’s the tiny, miniscule question of what Flayn meant by _men and women alike have been seduced by your nefarious ways_ , because--here’s the thing--who was feeding such salacious gossip to the angel-faced baby of the Academy? And who gave her the idea that Sylvain and _men_ \--

Of course some of the snootier pockets of minor families still have their hang-ups, but being stuck in some pre-Loog mindset is their own problem. So it’s not that Sylvain _cares_ , not in that sense. His asshole would never unclench from the stress of just existing around his fellow classmates at Garreg Mach otherwise. 

If anything, Sylvain merely wants to know where Flayn got the idea, or what assumptions her rumor-slinger of choice made before delivering the goods. 

Which is how he ended up with no fewer than four people glaring at him in the dining hall food line, including Flayn herself. 

“Syl- _vain_.” She pokes her head around the two tall men standing between them, her mouth pinched into a straight line. “I thought I told you--”

“Is this not six feet? I can go one more spot back if you--”

“No, no. You are correct.” She turns to the counter and takes extreme care to handle her plate and silverware with utmost precision. “Do you always portray the exchange of idle chatter like an illicit Abyssian trade deal, or is it just today’s daily special?” 

She doesn’t allow him time to answer before taking her meal to one of the empty spots at a far table, out of range of whatever ruckus Raphael has goaded Lorenz into.

It’s loud, their apparent shouting contest, so Flayn traverses the entire length of the dining hall, and by the time Sylvain turns back to the chefs behind the counter, all the peach sorbet is gone. 

“Wasn’t hungry anyway. Thanks, doll,” he says with a wink to one of them, the older woman whose sharp cheekbones rival the knife she’s always sharpening--some might say _pointedly_ \--when he glances her way.

Six feet away from Flayn’s seat is, by his estimation, a perch against the slanted sills of the windows. He spares no amount of theatricality as he settles in--it’s all part of the process of working people, knowing when to flatter and when to play coy and when to really draw out their ire. Far from foolproof, he admits, but Flayn isn’t a woman from town whose name he’s already misremembered twice. 

Her sigh is weary when she finally meets his eye over her helping of sorbet--wearier than he expected, in a way that’s almost familiar. “What is it?”

Over her shoulder, far enough beyond Raphael and Lorenz to render it a blur, a mop of blue-black hair turns their way and the gaze lands heavy on his throat. But only for a moment. “You said something about… what was it, my ‘nefarious ways?’”

“I believe so, yes.”

“And the so-called ‘victims’--”

“I called them no such thing,” she says, digging her spoon into the softened peach slice curved against the bottom of the bowl. 

“Not out loud.” He grins, angling his mouth just right so the light catches in the glint of his teeth. It’s the only math that’s ever earned his effort. “It’s not like I don’t know what people say about me--most of the time, at least.”

She sighs again, but it’s huffier, the kind of sigh he’s come to expect from Ingrid, or Lysithea, or Leonie, or--“My brother is due to finish his meeting with Lady Rhea within five minutes, so I would advise--”

“Women _and_ men?” 

The question hangs between them like one of Hanneman’s magic demonstrations, unmoving, waiting to be examined from all angles and picked apart. 

Flayn frowns, eyebrows knitting together in a complicated knot. “Are you not--”

“Uh, not to my knowledge.”

“Not to your--but it’s you,” she says. “How would you not--”

“Where did you hear this?”

Spluttering, she redirects everything into that spoon and into the poor peach slice, now reduced to mush. “If you are searching for a single source, there isn’t one! I am more than capable of a-assimilating information into um--a… a conclusion! Even if it is wrong!” 

The clatter of her dishes interrupts Lorenz mid-soliloquy, and only then do the Golden Deer realize he and Raphael are both standing on the table. The low hum of questions focused on that end of the hall are drowned out by those buzzing just behind Sylvain’s eyes.

**2**

Nothing of the sort has ever been said out loud, but Sylvain knows he’s on a three-strike system with Dorothea like he knows how to navigate the Fraldarius manor--it’s intuitive, unreliant on light or sobriety for it to appear before him. And based on the chart that he certainly is _not_ keeping in the margins of his military history notes, he’s down to strike two. Strike two and a half, really, if Dorothea’s not feeling generous, and with him she rarely is. 

It’s her smile that gets him, shoves him off balance. She can keep it pulled taut even while shooting all sorts of lances out of every other part of her body. 

All this to say: when he spots her in her usual chair in the Reception Hall, one of his niggling curiosities shoves its way to the front. Her hat. Where did she get her hat? It matches perfectly with the rest of the Officer’s Academy uniforms--was he supposed to get a hat too? Has everyone else simply decided to go without after seeing how immaculately Dorothea strode about the monastery with it perfectly askew? 

He has other questions--or, question. Singular.

Pestering her over a hat may not be worth half a strike, but if she’s going to freeze him out for five days afterward if it is, well. He can’t risk it. He can’t wait that long. 

Truthfully, he could, but he’d rather not. And delayed gratification has rarely served him well.

So he sidles carefully through the minefield of chairs crowding the space between tables and plops himself into the seat opposite her. He leans his head against the wall and grins for good measure, and there’s a theory going around that it’s an adorable look on him. 

(The theory is his, and it’s five seconds old, but it checks out.)

“And what have I done to earn this wonderful little surprise?” she says. That smile of hers is on, and Sylvain can’t figure out how threatened he should be before the silence is officially labeled _unconducively long._

“Just want to pick your brain, is all,” he says, pulling his head up from the wall and resting it in his propped-up hand. Tried and true angles, they can never do him wrong.

“About?”

“Well--”

“Hanneman is holding an archery exam for our house later this afternoon, and I _could_ spend my time training--”

“I’m trying to source a rumor.”

“--but I could also stay.” Her grin tightens on one side, brighter than Mercedes’ casts of Nosferatu--brighter still when she leans forward. “Do tell.”

It was easier in his head, this part, but Ingrid’s called him on his big mouth their whole lives for a reason. The difficulty is merely a short hurdle; to anyone outside that childhood bubble, the half-second pause would slip by completely unnoticed. “Who’s saying that I’m into women _and_ men?”

Dorothea squints. “You’re not?”

“I like to think I would know.”

“You’d be surprised,” she says. The grin turns to a smirk and flips Sylvain’s stomach over in the same swift movement. “Anyway, to answer your question… I think people just assume.”

“ _Why_ , though?”

“You have a…” she sighs. “I don’t know, _energy_.” When she waves her fingers his way, little sparks of lightning spit from her nails. 

The same thing happens to Felix when he’s frustrated and not paying attention, gesturing to whatever is drawing the sword-sharp glare its way--Dimitri letting slip a remark darker than expected, the shoddy state of the training ground’s practice equipment, Sylvain any time he opens his mouth. 

And, almost on cue, Felix shoulders through the door: sweaty from another block of hours spent training, hair straining to be free from his sloppy attempt at a bun, uniform shirt unbuttoned a few slots further down than normal. His steel sword, still banged-up from last month’s mission, is strapped to his back, and he’s deep in some debate with Petra. 

Her intricate set of braids drips over her shoulder as if she just came from having it styled, and Dorothea’s gaze is dragged the entire length of the hall. 

“Oho,” he says, following their path toward the Entrance Hall while nudging her boot under the table. “Is that how it is?”

“You were staring at Felix’s ass that whole time, and you’re trying to tell me you’ve only got eyes for women?”

“You’re deflecting.”

“But,” she sighs, completely ignoring him and _very much_ still deflecting, “maybe you do. It would explain your utter lack of introspection, self-awareness--”

“Okay, Dad.”

“--just a really shallow sense of what’s going on inside your own head.”

Sylvain glances back over his shoulder--Felix and Petra have long since passed into the next section of the monastery. Sure, he could dig more to unearth the full nugget of what’s going on with Dorothea and the Academy’s resident Brigidian, but Dorothea’s also not the only one with exams staring her down. It’d be nice to borrow some tips for the Professor’s Reason exam, compare notes with the mile-a-minute advice Annette doles out over breakfast--and he can’t do that when Dorothea’s pretending he doesn’t exist. Half of what’s rolling around in his head is worth two full strikes by themselves. Each.

“I have depth!” 

“Well, maybe.” Shrugging, she gathers her belongings and starts to make her way up toward the cathedral. Toward the training grounds, assumedly, with one of her sharp eyes turned toward the rickety training bows. 

“In theory--” And he stops his hand halfway toward grabbing her wrist as she leaves, because that would be worth enough strikes to last until graduation. “In theory…” he says slowly, “how would I, uh… _know_. If you get what I’m saying.” 

She frowns. It’s a frown of consideration, yet Sylvain can still sense his hair wilting under it all the same. “I do.” Another pause. “At some point, you just know. And you can deal with it or shove it away, but it always comes back. So I guess you just have to pay attention instead of…”

“Instead of what?” 

The steeple bells clang overhead with a tone deep enough to dislodge the headache he’s been trying to keep at bay for days; almost as if she can sense the coming downfall of his charm to pain, Dorothea reignites her shuffle toward the exit. “Whatever it is you’ve _been_ doing.”

Sylvain makes a note to burn the letters from his father so people can stop cribbing the latest set of complaints from the frigid north. It’s the only explanation. 

**3**

Some may call it vanity, but Sylvain considers it a matter of comfort--if he can help it, he’d rather not subject himself to overdue amounts of sweating. Battle? Sex? Fine. There, it’s warranted, an accepted consequence, physical evidence of success that no one could rightfully deny. 

But the uniforms are a hassle to have cleaned, and they’ve only been allotted so many of them, and the way it sticks to his skin when the sun’s been allowed to beat down on his delicate Faerghus complexion is maybe the worst feeling in the world. 

(Aside from being shot with an arrow, or taking Miasma straight to the chest, or hearing the latest remarks about Miklan--)

Anyway.

If he has his choice, he’d rather not be sweaty, and the most oppressively sticky duty on the roster is the greenhouse. So he tends to avoid it, gladly trades his rotation there in the chores schedule with Ashe for more time at the stables. The Professor hasn’t caught on yet, or they don’t care, and either suits him just fine. 

Today, though--one short negotiation with Hilda later, he’s standing beside Dedue with a bucket of fertilizer, tossing it into the lush growth like an old woman feeding the pigeons in Fhirdiad. 

It’s probably not how the fertilizer is used, and Dedue knows this; but Dedue, in his stony sense of concentration, says nothing and continues to water each individual plant--a steady drip for this bush, a spray for the carnivorous leafy maw in the corner. His precision is almost terrifying, knowing how those same gentle hands slip on gauntlets before marching into battle, and here Sylvain is, wantonly splatting pegasus blessings onto the widest fronds before him.

A particularly large clump of fertilizer lands in the open mouth of the giant flytrap, which snaps shut and, to Sylvain’s horror, spits it back up with a shuddering gag. 

“Ah--got a question for you,” Sylvain says before Dedue can admonish him for his mistake--he could see it coming, the subtle shift of his boots against the damp stone. 

“All right.”

“So how did you know you’d fallen in love with Dimitri?”

Sylvain’s paid enough attention to know that the plant Dedue is currently watering requires a gentle mist over its leaves and that prolonged exposure to water risks rot setting in at the tips; his thumb remains in place over the mouth of the hose, spraying the plant in question for five seconds too long, ten seconds, fifteen seconds. Dedue doesn’t move, and Sylvain does little but tap his soiled fingers against the clod of fertilizer in his hand. 

“Uh--”

“Please leave the greenhouse.” 

“Dedue--”

“Please leave the greenhouse.”

“I don’t know who else--”

Quick as Felix skewering an enemy’s stomach, Dedue turns the spraying hose on Sylvain, shooting him in the face. The bucket of pegasus blessings tumbles to the ground and empties over his boots, and by the time he blinks the water from his eyes, Dedue has returned to his careful tending of the other plants, reducing the hose’s output to a slow trickle.

“I apologize,” says Dedue. “That was unbecoming of me.”

Sylvain squeezes water out of his bangs and tries to push the heavy, limp hair out of his eyes. “Yeah, no--I, uh… got it.”

The next plant gets watered, and the next, and the next, and Sylvain senses he’s missed something.

“Please leave the greenhouse.”

There it is. 

“Right, right, my bad--I’ll get out of your hair--” He nearly runs headfirst into the head gardener shouldering his way through the doors, almost trips over Cyril pruning the shrubs outside. And if there’s a heavy pair of eyes squinting after him in confusion from the fishing dock, he tries not to pay it any mind.

**4**

(Perhaps a different approach is warranted.)

Sylvain spots her from the top of the stairs leading down into the market; he takes them two at a time, spreading his arms wide in what he hopes to the Goddess above is a warm, unthreatening greeting. “Shamir!”

She hardly looks up from the careful work of her hands on her bow. “No.”

“Okay then,” he says, turning on his heel. “Never mind!”

(On the other hand: perhaps not.)

**5**

No one knows who first spotted the stretch of three days between the end of exams and the winter Ball, but even the most novice of investigators can trace the planning of the night of drunken debauchery right back to Sylvain. He staked out the party’s location, sourced the alcohol, and--though he told no one--paid the gate guard a handsome sum to look the other way if any students passed by his post with an unusual amount of stumble in their gait. 

It was a perfect evening--now morning, inching closer to sunrise with every hiccup Ashe fails to swallow--and Sylvain’s found himself in the bit of green space outside the dorms, swaying in time with Mercedes, only without the grace that seems inherent in her careful, wavering steps. 

He shouldn’t say it was perfect, no. Felix wasn’t there. Felix had scheduled some sword sparring sessions with the Professor for early the next morning and didn’t dare oversleep, and why would he bother drinking the stresses of the last semester into softness when softness is something to be avoided? Softness isn’t a quality of a sword, or the last Fraldarius son, and so it’s never to be indulged. Sylvain can hear his voice in his ear as clearly as if he were actually there among them; and maybe he’s mouthing along with it, and maybe Mercedes has seen the path he’s barreling toward as the sun ticks closer to the horizon.

“I should probably take Ashe back to his room,” she says. Her words slur together just enough for the edges to blend, but her steps are confident and straight. 

“No, no no,” Sylvain says. “We could still--Felix!” he calls loudly toward the second story of rooms. “Come out with us!” A couple birds flutter away from their perches on the roof. “FELIX, COME OUT WITH US.” 

Even through the predawn darkness, Mercedes’ grimace is palpable as she gets an arm around Ashe’s wobbling form. “We’ll see you in the morning, okay? Sleep well!” 

And then he’s alone. 

He pauses, waiting to sense the spin of Fódlan beneath his feet. It doesn’t come, so he feels secure enough to venture up the steps to the furthest set of dorms, the Professor’s own room, and then on to the sauna and imposing doors to the training grounds. Maybe Felix made his way there as the party got underway, knowing he could have it to himself--

“Bit early for a walk.”

“Late,” Sylvain says. “Can’t be early because I haven’t gone to bed yet.”

The owner of the voice emerges from whatever shadows still exist in the dark: ridiculous upturned pointed shoes, a cape, hair the kind of purple Ingrid’s father used to dress her in as a child before she threw the tantrum to end all tantrums. The man smirks at him, and something in Sylvain’s stomach twists in a warm-sharp knot. 

_At some point_ , Dorothea’s voice says in his head, _you just know_.

“Haven’t seen you around here much,” Sylvain says. 

“That’s on purpose.” 

He’s a few inches shorter but manages to cross the gap between them in the time that Sylvain’s head processes what he’s seen between heavy blinks. The rum and wine are actively flushing out of his system but the parts that were soaked through remain squishy and unsteady, and soon he finds his back pressed against the stone wall, his hands tight against the man’s hips. He pulled him there, and he wants--he wants a lot of things, none of which are listening too closely to the river of thoughts roiling through his head, no matter what Dorothea said. He wants. He lets himself want. 

“I’ve seen _you_ around quite a bit,” the man says, and Sylvain’s grip on him tightens. 

“That right?” 

The man laughs in a way that’s closer to a sigh, grabbing Sylvain’s chin to bring him into an open-mouthed kiss. 

What noise leaks from his mouth isn’t something he recognizes, but he doesn’t stop to pick it apart--why would he, when would he have the time? The mystery man’s secured a knee between his legs, and he can feel a hard line of warmth against his own, and--

It ends. 

The man pulls away, turns on the ball of his absurdly-shod foot toward the pond. “Come find me if you’re ever in Abyss. I think there might be some information I have that Faerghus could find use for.” The shadows quickly overtake him, and once again, Sylvain is alone.

What else did Dorothea say? _You can deal with it or shove it away, but it always comes back._

It always comes back. 

He thinks of Felix. He thinks of the contemptuous hold of his lips, his delicate fingers knit tight around the hilt of his sword, how both would look wrapped in Sylvain’s open mouth. How Felix’s hand would look, dwarfed in his own, when Glenn’s ghost sits too heavily on his shoulder. 

Sylvain’s hands come up to his eyes, pressing until there’s a burst of silver stars sparking into the black. “ _Fuck_.”

**+1**

In the aftermath of Jeralt’s death, Felix elects to spend even more of his time in the training grounds, working until the air is chilled enough to turn his breath to clouds, the knocking of his sword against the practice dummies the only sound near the dorms. 

Sylvain knows this because he’s followed him--which is normal, he’s decided.

The roof encircling the grounds is accessible from the landing outside the sauna if you know which bricks to trust in the ascent; and everyone knows this, because Caspar discovered it and is incapable of subtlety.

So Sylvain climbs. He sits and he watches Felix beat the practice swords until chips start flying and landing in the dirt around him, until he works the last of the viable weapons past the point of usefulness and whips out a metal one and cuts the poor dummy to pieces. The sheen of that sword in the cloud-pocked moonlight is duller than the one he wielded against the Demonic Beasts last month--his iron one, the one Glenn took him to the local blacksmith to forge just before that ill-fated trip to Duscur. The same one he’ll spend his last smithing stones to keep from snapping in two. 

Even from this distance, his ass looks fantastic. He can hardly blame himself during that chat with Dorothea now--of _course_ he stared. Of _course_ he’s still staring. He’s going to feel every ounce of his latest revelation, and that includes letting himself flush as Felix’s ass flexes with every lunge forward and each crackle of Lightning that winds up the tip of his weapon. 

Tonight, more than nights past, has felt the recent drought, the air so dry it’s buzzing; and when he accidentally releases a blip of Thoron through the iron, the beleaguered dummy bursts into flames. 

“Shit--” Felix swivels on the ball of his foot, casts his glance at every corner of the training grounds--and, for the first time in five days, lands on Sylvain’s silhouette against the night sky. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Your dummy’s on fire.”

“I know that.” He growls, a low sound in his throat that Sylvain picks up even from the roof and tries to make a mental note of for later. He growls again, stooping to gather handfuls of dirt to throw on the fire. “You still didn’t”--more dirt hits the flames--“tell me”--and another scoop--“what the hell you’re doing!”

While Felix is stomping out the final embers, he slips down from the roof, down the stairs, and through the imposing doors. A couple battered training swords lay forgotten at the base of a nearby column, and he picks them both up, offering one to Felix once he’s at his side. 

“What?” Felix spits.

“C’mon.” Sylvain nudges him with the blunt wooden tip. “I’ve got to be more interesting to spar than some dummy.”

Felix raises an eyebrow.

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that,” he says. “Please? I’d like to pass my next sword exam.”

“The Professor isn’t giving any exams this week. And you’re in a cavalry track--what do you need another sword rank for?”

Night is certainly preferable for some situations, but it tends to catch Sylvain at a disadvantage--for one, whatever light the moon offers is rarely enough to get the perfect shine in his pleading puppy-dog eyes. 

Felix growls again, and it hits Sylvain right below the stomach. “Fine.” Sword properly snatched, he puts a precise ten paces between them and turns. “For the record, this was your idea. I’m not going to go easy on you.”

“Good!--”

Which, he realizes watching Felix rush toward him, was perhaps a premature assessment. 

His brain can’t keep up with the blows raining down on him--only by pure luck and instinct does he manage to parry them, his feet scrambling back until his heel scrapes against the base of a column and he stumbles to angle himself away, and then Felix lands a hit into a soft part of his side, just below the ribs. The ground rises to meet him with an unforgiving thud. 

The ground may be unforgiving, but Sylvain has to wonder about the rest of it, how Felix lands on top of him--knees digging into his hips, one hand gripped around Sylvain’s wrist, and the other pointing the softened sword end at his throat. 

“You have a lot to learn,” Felix says between breaths. 

“From you? I’d hope so.”

“Tch.” 

“You’re the best at sword in our entire house,” he says, because it’s true, but also--

“Are you going to tell me why you were watching me like a creep?”

Sylvain sighs. “First of all, I take offense to that comparison.” He tests the hold Felix has on his one wrist, and he can’t get it to budge. 

“Good,” Felix says. “What’s second?”

“Huh?”

“You said ‘first of all,’ so that implies--”

“Oh, right.” He stares up at Felix’s face--it’s so familiar to him. He can’t remember a point in his life when some version of that face, either pubescently stretched or plump with baby fat, wasn’t at least in the periphery of his awareness. It sits above him, rosy-cheeked and fated in some way he can’t quite articulate. He’s willed all his blood to keep flowing through his brain, but it’s never managed to listen that well. 

“I…” Sylvain catches Felix’s eye and holds it. If his big mouth has any time to shine, this is it. “I think I’m in love with you?”

The grip on his wrist releases immediately, and Felix’s practice sword clatters to the ground by his ear. The weight on his hips shifts; he watches Felix lean back, his entire face frozen save for his eyes. His eyes, everything there tenses. Each eyelid strains and quivers as his gaze darts around Sylvain’s face, the tensed angles of his neck, all the dipping shadows afforded by the setting moon overhead. 

And then both of Felix’s hands latch onto his face. He’s kissing him. Goddess above, is Felix kissing him, opened-mouth and whining at a pitch Sylvain would’ve thought he’d be too self-conscious to explore. But assumptions shatter at breakneck speeds--Felix grinds down on him, and at least the lightest sleepers of their classmates must have woken up at this point. 

“Are you going to fuck me, or what?” Felix pants into his mouth. 

Sylvain can’t put words together, but he can reach up to Felix’s face, tracing the line of his cheekbone until his thumb falls against his mouth. His tongue presses against it, slow and hot. “You want me to?”

“Sylvain--”

With his hand latched around Felix’s chin, he pulls him into a sloppy kiss, the kind the village women say he’s infamous for, the way the passion sends him barreling senseless, licking past their teeth with abandon. But what was once strategy is rendered into instinct, all desperation and clumsy, gripping hands. 

“Not here,” he gasps. “Call me a romantic-- _fuck_ \--” His train of thought short-circuits as Felix drags his teeth down the length of his earlobe. “Call me a romantic, but I’m fucking you in a bed the first time. And maybe...”

Half of Felix’s bun has come undone, falling against the side of Sylvain’s face. It tickles--and for the first time in recent memory, it’s not the gentlest thing about him. A finger carefully wraps itself around a sprig of Sylvain’s hair, his red-swollen lips have lost the cold, rigid set they’ve held the last five years. And sure, he’s still glaring down at him, but that just means it’s still Felix. 

“Maybe _what_?” 

“Maybe we don’t have to do that tonight,” he says, quiet. “I want to get it right.”

Felix pulls back like Sylvain’s just thrown a heaping pile of fertilizer in his face, sitting back on his heels. “Fucking Seiros.”

“Wh--”

“You were _serious_.”

Sylvain props himself up on his elbows, searches all across Felix’s face for a clue. An obvious one, what with his head spinning in a single, closed loop. He’s not even glaring at him anymore, merely sitting as limply as he can without tipping over, mouth testing out the shapes of words without committing to them.

“It’s been known to happen,” Sylvain says. “About what, though?”

The sigh he gets in return is closer to a growl, but not quite over the edge, smoothed over by Felix dragging a hand down his face. 

“Hey, hey…” Sylvain sits up fully, and while Felix makes quite the show of grumbling about ending up in his lap, he’s known him long enough to spot the corners of his mouth ticking up at the slightest degree. “What is it?”

“You…” Suddenly the splintered edge of one of the training swords is the most interesting thing in all of Fódlan. “I’m not going to say it.”

“Very unhelpful.”

“You’re one to talk.”

Sylvain rolls his eyes, which he’s not even sure Felix can see in the dark, though he suspects he can sense them all the same. “Come on…” His gaze falls on the loose hair pooling at his shoulder. He’s so close, closer than he’s ever been, and as he slowly tucks it behind Felix’s ear, he can feel him shaking--not from the cold, but a tense sort of thing, a metal cord about to snap. 

“Felix--”

The kiss knocks the wind out of him--Felix is on his knees, looming over him, tipping his head up, and it’s all Sylvain can do just to hold on. His hands latch onto Felix’s ass, and the immaculate curves against his palms almost let him have a coherent thought. (The thought is _fuck_ , underlined and bolded, and apparently even thoughts can stutter, as this one came impossibly close.)

Felix’s hands dig into his hair, nails dragging against his scalp, and they tug just enough for Sylvain to fully bare his throat. This all could be a ploy, couldn’t it? Felix, taking a cue from the Death Knight and Solon and their freakish minions, sinking his teeth in until they’re bloody--but then, just behind his ear, at the soft stretch of skin at the knotted corner of his jaw, Felix’s lips land. Unhurried, reverent, all the hardness of him having fallen away. 

“Not a name just to cross off your list?” he murmurs, and then Sylvain understands.

“Oh--Felix, no.” As much as he misses the warmth pressed against his neck, he needs to look Felix in the eye. “I fully intend on embarrassing you for the, uh… well, unforeseeable future. I’m going to hold your hand in public.”

“Sylvain--”

“Even Alois is going to be tempted to say something about my PDA--”

“Shut up.” And he makes him. Gladly. He shuts him up until the sun rises and Sylvain can start thinking about a future--after the Academy, without his crest taking center stage, something bright and bloodless dawning on the border of Sreng.


End file.
